PLoS ONE (Jan 2020)

Spindly leg syndrome in Atelopus varius is linked to environmental calcium and phosphate availability.

  • Elliot Lassiter,
  • Orlando Garcés,
  • Kathleen Higgins,
  • Eric Baitchman,
  • Matthew Evans,
  • Jorge Guerrel,
  • Eric Klaphake,
  • Donna Snellgrove,
  • Roberto Ibáñez,
  • Brian Gratwicke

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235285
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 6
p. e0235285

Abstract

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Spindly leg syndrome (SLS) is a relatively common musculoskeletal abnormality associated with captive-rearing of amphibians with aquatic larvae. We conducted an experiment to investigate the role of environmental calcium and phosphate in causing SLS in tadpoles. Our 600-tadpole experiment used a fully-factorial design, rearing Atelopus varius tadpoles in water with either high (80mg/l CaCO3), medium (50mg/l CaCO3), or low calcium hardness (20mg/l CaCO3), each was combined with high (1.74 mg/l PO4) or low (0.36 mg/l PO4) phosphate levels. We found that calcium supplementation significantly improved tadpole survival from 19% to 49% and that low calcium treatments had 60% SLS that was reduced to about 15% at the medium and high calcium treatments. Phosphate supplementation significantly reduced SLS prevalence in low calcium treatments. This experimental research clearly links SLS to the calcium: phosphate homeostatic system, but we were unable to completely eliminate the issue, suggesting an interactive role of other unidentified factors.